Solve the Higher Education Debt Problem by Making College Less Necessary

There is a grocery store nearby that I used to frequent. It provides quality products and I valued the brands and selection. Over the years the management or ownership clearly made a decision to establish the store as a premium spot, and one of the main ways that they did this was by significantly increasing the prices. I kept going there as did many others, but we complained about the prices to one another. So, why did we keep going there? When I finally came to my senses, I looked around for other options and found any number of great alternatives with far more competitive prices.

Sometimes it seems like there is a parallel in modern higher education. Consider the countless complaints in the form of articles lamenting the massive rise in tuition over the years, the growing college debt for graduates, as well as graduates failing to find jobs that they deem as a valid justification for such cost and debt. Yet, people keep going. In fact, even as we complain about the costs, we seem to be just as passionate about advocating for even more people going to college.

While some seek a solution to at least part of these concerns by lobbying for tax-funded tuition free college education opportunities or capping the cost of college, I offer an alternative that might be even more effective at addressing the concerns about cost, debt, and employment. What if we stopped going to college, or at least reduced the role of college as the required gateway to countless careers and opportunities? There are many ways to learn a given body of knowledge and skills, and if we are willing to let go of our attachment to college as “the way” and instead recognize it as what it as “a way”, then we open up an entirely new set of possibilities. What if we invested more time and resources in creating a learning ecosystem where college is one of many learning pathways to a growing number of careers?

This removes the debt and has potential to increase access and opportunity to living wages without higher education gatekeepers holding the keys to such work. If college is less necessary and less common for getting the jobs to which many aspire, we might actually make more progress in solving the debt problem than by reform efforts.

I’m not suggesting that we get rid of college, only that we stop looking at it as the only way to accomplish the goal of reach learning goals that lead to gainful employment and the associated access and opportunity. This calls for employers reconsidering the criteria that they put on job postings. It also requires professions focusing more upon verifying that people are qualified for the profession instead of dictating the ways in which one reaches that qualification. This goes back to what I’ve called The Lincoln Test (the title of a book that I’m writing). Lincoln didn’t go to law school but he passed the bar and become a lawyer. Why can’t we do more of that for a larger array of professions? Then we can add countless and various priced learning opportunities that can help people reach that qualification. We can create a competitive marketplace for such learning that ranges from simple self-study to tutors, short courses, online learning environments, computer-aided instruction, experiential learning opportunities, and anything else that we can think up. We just have to be sure not to make the same mistake of pouring tons of public funding into these training opportunities or over-regulating them. That will just drive the price up…just like college. Instead, let the ecosystem grow a wonderful and somewhat wild garden of learning.

This doesn’t require massive or overnight changes in the short-term. It can begin with individual professions as well as employers being open to alternative pathways…eventually not even calling them alternatives. They are just pathways. As more professions do this, ecosystem will grow and we may soon find that there are far fewer concerns about the cost or debt associated with college, because colleges will no longer serve as trolls under the bridge to career and related opportunities.

Some say that such a suggestion is an attack on higher education. While this would probably result in a decline in college enrollment, I contend that in the midterm, it might actually help colleges reconnect with the greatest value that they can offer society.

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About Bernard Bull

Dr. Bernard Bull is an author, professor of education, Vice Provost of Curriculum and Academic Innovation, podcast host, and blogger. Some of his books include Missional Moonshots: Insights and Inspiration for Educational Innovation, What Really Matters: Ten Critical Issues in Contemporary Education, The Pedagogy of Faith (editor), Adventures in Self-Directed Learning, and Digitized: Spiritual Implications of Technology. He is passionate about futures in education; educational innovation; and social entrepreneurship.

One Reply to “Solve the Higher Education Debt Problem by Making College Less Necessary”

How can individual learners help make this vision a reality? Should we be lobbying our congresspeople to remove degree requirements for professional licensure (they are actually doing the opposite right now)? Should we be contacting employers and asking whether they would be open to new ways to demonstrate skills (I’ve tried this, it didn’t really go so well)? Should we keep our heads down and keep learning, confident that direct assessment-based pathways will be in place for us when we have mastered the applicable competencies? Is there any specific place we can move to to take advantage of alternative pathways that will soon be in place? Do we need to work the “long path” to become university educators ourselves before our contributions will be valued?